Saturday, January 15, 2011

Abstract on my easel....

Day 1: I covered the canvas with a warm grey. Actually, it looks more like a neutral khaki. This is a very large canvas...4 feet by 6 feet on heavy duty canvas and stretcher bars.

Very heavy, very big, taking up lots of studio space. I had to store it in the bathtub at the studio until I was ready to paint.

Day 2: Blocking in some color...as you can see in the first photo, I have a horizon line going.Day 3: Trying to figure out the color palette...paint chips at the bottom of the easel. Grant told me that Honeysuckle was the "in" color for 2011. So I started out with brown, tan, white, red and honeysuckle as what I thought would be my colors. I also got out he oil sticks.

Day 4: After looking at the canvas, I felt that it was pretty boring. So I started adding some color and left my initial color scheme...no honeysuckle here. When I arrived at the studio the following day, my studio partners asked me if I was painting this for Oprah. I didn't get it, until someone said it looked like her name on the canvas. It was not intentional, but when you stand back from the painting, it does look like the Oprah signature/logo in paint.

Day 6: Not only did I paint out the O (as in Oprah), but added more color. I needed to paint over the stark white/titanium white. Yellow ochre was introduced, and I borrowed some HUGE palette knives from Sharon and Mark. That made it so much easier to spread the paint. Lots of texture. Layers of paint. So after day 6, this is what I have going on. I hope to return to the studio...will keep you posted on the progress of this astract. Thanks for viewing my blog! Kay